All posts tagged ‘Zbyněk Poulíček’

The 10th Annual Microsoft Imagine Cup starts on July 6th in Sydney, Australia. GeekDad is profiling Imagine Cup alumni leading up to the world-wide finals. For more information, be sure to follow Daniel Donahoo’s coverage of the event.

The Imagine Cup’s tagline is “Imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems.” It’s an ambitious goal, and one that is smartly conceived for a global competition. It focuses competitor’s projects into something that has humanitarian implications instead of purely commercial. And everyone’s take on what real-world challenges are important is going to be different and, in many ways, local. The projects I get the most excited about are the ones that take on the humanitarian angle and succeed. One example of that success is demonstrated by the Czech team, GINA, who competed in the Imagine Cup world-wide finals in Poland in 2010.

The GINA system, which stands for Geographical Information Assistant, is designed to allow people to share information based on location. Specifically, rescuers can coordinate and log information to more effectively enter a disaster area and share what they see or do. For example, photographs, videos or even drawings made on an internet enabled mobile phone are geo-tagged, uploaded and shared immediately to other rescuers in the area. A map can display everyone’s tags, using icons on push pins that represent various types of information. At a glance, you can view a map of an area and begin to get an impression of what’s happening and where you should focus your efforts.